Ecstasy use may cause brain damage

Long term ecstasy use could damage the brain, according to Scientists in the Netherlands.

The researchers showed an area of the brain associated with memory, the hippocampus, was 10% smaller in people who took the drug.

The researchers at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam compared the brains of a group of 10 male ecstasy users with seven men who did not take ecstasy, but consumed similar levels of other drugs and alcohol.

The ecstasy users had taken an average of 281 tablets in the six and a half years before the study. Both groups took no drugs in the two months before the brain scans.

The study showed the size of the hippocampus was 10.5% smaller in ecstasy users and they had 4.6% less grey matter.